He Didn't Return From Battle
by ClassicalTorture
Summary: War doesn't spare anyone. Whether you're a child, a soldier, a hunter. When a small boy stumbles over the mine field in front of a Soviet trench in the midst of WWII, the unit of Black Coats, criminal men used as cannon fodder for the Soviet Army, has no choice but to take him in until they can convince someone to have him. Yondu Udonta, a Captain in the midst of the bloodiest war.
1. Frozen Trenches

This is a plot line that myself and WriteLikeAnAmerican have talked about before. Little RedHotRidingHood has a story running in a similar verse, build off that plot line, but I asked if she would mind if I gave it a little shot as well. She didn't so here is the result

Chapter Management

Chapter 1: The Frozen Trenches

Chapter Text

Yondu is an old soldier. He's been through the Khalkhyn Gol, he warred in Spain. And now the uniform was calling him once more, even though it never once let him go. Not since the dirty, scrappy 18 year old walked into the Army Recruitment Center and announced that he wanted to be a Soldier. Soldier with a capital S. Because there was such a profession as protecting your birthplace.

Yondu didn't really remember his own real birthplace, having been an orphan fro most of his life, but he could still recall colorful clothes, loud songs, and a sense of belonging. With the exception of colorful clothes, the Army really wasn't that different.

When the evenings got dark and only a light of a candle was enough to illuminate the chilly dug-out, Captain Udonta leaned back onto his tattered bag, pulled off a thinned boot and whistled along with the songs of the soldiers as he mended the leather. Always was the best whistler in the Unit, too. They even had him perform in the small shows that happened whenever a half-starved artist or singer managed to make their way into their lice-ridden neck of the woods of Belarus.

This evening was no different. Only there was no rain, and the fine settlement of snow had finally covered their positions enough to provide a good scope for the local sniper, Czar. A huge man, who hailed from the depth of Syberia, and had the typical build of a native all too used to hauling a boar or a deer over his back on his way to the home village deep in the forests. How and why he was assigned to the Black Coats Unit was unknown to everyone but Captain Udonta, who, due to his rank as the commander of these man was privy to such information.

So, Czar, their sniper and a guy who could drink under the table even the most bottomless of his contingent, was perched in a hideout a few meters away from the main trenches, cleverly hidden in a cloak painted in splotchy grays, blacks, and browns, now with sporadically added white of the fluffy snow. It was him who first noticed the small figure stumbling over towards their location from the nearby forest, usually filled with partisans, but suspiciously empty in the last week or so.

Humming to himself, but still not moving a muscle, the soldier trailed hie sharp eye over the huddled form. Looked like a kid, dressed up in a thin ratty coat and with a head full of dark matted hair. And headed straight for their mine field.

Cursing, Czar spit on the notion of a cover, especially considering that it was twilight hours and most of the things had long shadows that were able to hide him rather well. The sniper carefully propped up his rifle and scooted back into the trench, grimacing at the black trail he left in his wake.

Thumping his booted feet into the soggy and freezing ground, the soldier took a second to allow himself a quick stretch and galloped over to the wooden dugout shed at the end of the trench, where Captain Udonta was whistling another pearl of a song for the men.

"Captain! Saw a kid heading our way from the forests. Straight for the mines. Can we get the boyo? He'd get attention to our position is he blows, and he looked mighty small…"pleaded/suggested the sniper as he looked at his serious faced leader.

It didn't take Yondu long to curse up a storm in his usual manner, really unbecoming of a communist if you think about it, and sent out Sargent Obfonteri as a scope while he hopped over the trench line and crouch over in a fast huddle. He quickly spotted the child in question and bit back a particularly dirty expression picked up from the rowdier crowds back in the orphanage. Kid looked half dead and out of it, and heading right for the mine sight. Thank the damned he was doing it with a speed of a lame snail, but still…

"Boy!" hushdly whispered the Captain as he reached the kid and snugged him up into a hold. The kid in question didn't even reach beyond a tired sigh and a lean against the other's chest as he went limp.

"What are you doing here? It's no man's land, we got mines all over, and the Fritzs are sharp eyed!" he spoke with fervor, clutching the tiny body to his chest and making his way back, not really expecting an answer to be honest.

Just as the two were about to reach the trenches, Yondu felt the nonexistent hair on his head stand up, and ducked, instincts honed by years of war. A beam of light went by just a meter short of his position and he cursed under his breath, covering the kid, the war, the Fritzs, Stalin, Lenin, and everybody's mother for making his dumb enough to crawl out after a dump child walking into the mine fields in the middle of the night.

Thankfully, the Captain stayed still enough, and the boy was completely out of it, so the two rolled over the ledge of the frozen trench and landed on the ground.

"Huff! Here, receive the package"grumbled Udonta as he deposited the bundle of skin and bones into the arms of his Sargent, with orders to rub him down, warm him up, give the kid 100 grams, and force some food down his gullet.

"Why do I get the feelin' that we'll not be rid of that lil idiot for a while?" muttered the Captain to himself as he watched Obfonteri coo at the boy, and the rest of their unit crowd over the two, some already looking through their packs for some sugar and gallets.


	2. The Littlest Partisan

Chapter 2: The Littlest Partisan Chapter Text

Peter's mama was sick a lot. She couldn't work the filed anymore by the time the war came and German soldiers entered their village. Really, they were surviving off of the neighbors' rapidly dwindling pity and the small cool storage with a few left over jars of pickled vegetables. There hasn't been meat on the table in months.

Granpa was called off in mobilization, granma died a long time ago, and nobody ever bothered telling Peter who his father was, beyond an occasional sneer from a passing villager as they took in the boy's red hair and bright eyes, so completely unlike his mother's blond locks and brown gaze. Bastard, coocoo's child, unwanted, pitiful... All words young Pete learned from young age. Never mind how many times his mama told him otherwise, the idea tht he was less then others festered in the back of his mind like a grub in a pile of fertile manure.

Never the less, as useless as his mama was on the field's she knew the forests around the village like the back of her hand, and when the hush went around about creating a partisan troop, she was quickly asked to lend in her expertise. Of course nobody predicted that the sickly balding woman would pitch a fit and demand her offspring be taken along. Eventually, after grumbling for a while, he was allowed to come with, on the condition that he wouldn't make any trouble and help out as a scout. Expendable really... But he was happy and excited.

A real partisan! Finally, he wouldn't have to just sit in the hut and try to think of ways to trap some frogs in the pond, or finally master up the art of setting traps for the bunnies around the outskirts of the trees. He was gonna be with mama, and he was gonna be useful! He was gonna kill Germans, and win the war, and make mama better, because he would take her to the best doctors up in Moscow, and Tovarish Stalin himself would give him a medal!

Those dreams went fast. Very fast. As soon as the first cold from September hit, and the fall of 1942 turned deadly. Now just fro the shrinking Partisan troop, but for a particular little boy as well. Peter's mama was getting worse and worse as the weather spoiled, and there was no warm shelter to calm her bones in, no medicine to soothe her cough, and no hearty pork soup to stop the rattling of her body when the fevers hit.

In the end, Merridith Quil died not from her unfound cancer, but a simple cold, that found it's way into her lungs and worsened the already weak immune system. Leaving Peter Quil a full orphan at 8 years old.

He found out very quickly that the partisans that would sometimes joke with him, and give him extra rations to make him go play somewhere while they talked to his mama in her tent for an hour or so, turned out rather cold once she was gone.

His food supply went down to nothing, and nobody was generous enough to spare the boy a piece of bread or even an extra potato. Peter despaired, and looked at the sneering faces, being cautious of approaching them. And even more cautious of those that leered at him from the other side of the evening fires, all too friendly and willing to lend a shirt, a tent, a blanket. If only they wee in it as well.

It was no wonder that he resorted back to trying to catch small animals, dig out some of the crops, or steal some food from the near by villages. It was after he came back from an unsuccessful raid on the vegetable gardens around the area, having found a half rotten potato and some thin squishy carrots, that he saw his entire troop dead. Shot and scattered around by the machine gun fire from a Luftwaffe plane, a Messerschmidt that had apparently been staking them for a while. Ex-villagers really didn't make the best partisans with the amount of fires and trampled bush that they left behind every time the self-made resistance group walked around.

Sighing, all Peter was left to do was gather up a small bag and put in whatever food he could find, along with a thin coat that was the least messy of them all. Partisans didn't carry a lot of clothes changes with them after all, and all were shot down, leaving their coats bloody and full of holes. The boy suspected the only reason the drab coat he found was still safe was because somebody was mending it in their tent, and it only had a few bullet holes, but no blood stains.

The young boy wasn't far off the camp sight when he heard the approaching rattle in the sky and cursed as best as he could. Dropping the sack, blinded by panic, and not knowing what to do, Peter ran for the cover of thicker trees, shaking like a leaf and hiding under frozen fir trees, hoping fervently that he wasn't spotted by the Germans.

He wasn't, but in his fright, the kid lost the sack with food, and managed to loose a shoe as well. His boots were ratty, and too big for his feet, so it was no wonder one slipped off in his run.

Tired, exhausted really, hungry, cold, and weak, Peter resolved to just walk as far as his eye could see. He didn't and wouldn't later, remember walking all the way to the front lines, couldn't recall the way that he was almost blow up by friendly mines. All his mind grasped was the sudden warmth form large hands that grabbed him into an embrace, and the smell of cheap tobacco, sweat, and shoe polish.


End file.
